Campaigns pause after shootings

FORT MYERS, Fla. — President Barack Obama on Friday called the Colorado movie theater shooting “senseless” and said his administration “stands ready to do whatever is necessary to bring whoever is responsible for this heinous crime to justice.”

“We may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this,” he said. “Such violence, such evil, is senseless. It’s beyond reason.”

An overnight rampage that left 70 victims, including 12 dead and many more in critical condition, upended and paused a presidential campaign fought over small issues. Both Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney halted their negative TV advertising in Colorado, and both refrained from criticizing each other in their remarks Friday.

He instead returned to the White House to monitor the Colorado situation, White House press secretary Jay Carney said. At the White House, he met with senior officials including Vice President Joe Biden, FBI director Robert Mueller, chief of staff Jack Lew, Homeland Security adviser John Brennan, White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler and adviser Valerie Jarrett. Attorney General Eric Holder is out of country and will not be able to attend.

“There are going to be other days for politics,” Obama said. “This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection.”

The president ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff through Wednesday of next week.

Romney also said Friday wasn’t about presidential politics.

“I stand before you today not as a man running for office, but as a father and grandfather, a husband, an American. This is a time for each of us to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one or another, and how much we love and how much we care for our great country,” he said.

Addressing a crowd of about 2,000 people who came expecting a campaign rally, Obama spoke through awkward hoots and cheers during his remarks. The president delivered a subdued seven-minute address that sought to remind the nation of the importance of larger things — friends, family and life.

The Obama campaign’s advance staff had on Thursday night built the standard rally stage in Fort Myers, with his “Forward” signage. The signs were still up when local press first had access to the site Friday morning, but because the nature of the event changed, Obama staffers took them down before the national press corps arrived, a campaign aide said.

Instead, Obama stood at a sparse podium as he connected the shooting to his own family as he expressed a nation’s grief.

“I’m sure that many of you who are parents here had the same reaction that I did when I heard this news,” Obama said. “My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been in the theater, as so many of our kids do every day? Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I’m sure you will do the same with your children.”

Obama said the shootings should remind the nation of the importance of family and friends and added a subtle reminder not to be swept up by “the small things.”

“And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things which so often consume us in our daily lives,” he said. “Ultimately it is how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another.”

At least for the day, the tragedy offers Obama — and to a lesser extent, Romney as well — a chance to rise above the fray and unify the nation in the role as comforter-in-chief.